Archive for the 'Mountain Biking' Category

It rained all weekend. On Sunday, I decided to go for a ride anyway. I felt like riding my mountain bike, and doing something a little different, so I headed out to Hoosier National Forest for an 18-mile ride, almost entirely on gravel roads. Here is the route I rode.

Note that it’s the same route that I rode back in February, only then, it was covered in snow. It was interesting to see how different it looked this time.

An 18-mile, two hour-ish ride is by no means epic, but sometimes epic is more of a state of mind. The rain and the muddy, sandy gravel roads contributed to this feeling. I also fondly remembered how the area looked blanketed in snow, and how much harder the ride was then. Hence the “mini-epic” title. I will have some helmet cam videos to share from this ride, but I have not yet edited them.

The road was paved at first …

… but it soon turned to gravel.

The road climbed gently for a while, and then turned sharply uphill toward the small town of Normal. I remembered this being quite a climb, but I was pleased that it felt easier than I remembered. After riding past Norman, I turned back into HNF …

… for more gravel riding.

Along the way, I saw a number of trails for the Hickory Ridge trail system, most of which I’ve never ridden. It was too muddy today, but I am determined to spend more time in HNF this year and further explore the Hickory Ridge trailsystem.

I rode on a ridgetop for a little while, before a wild, multi-tiered descent. It was raining hard and the lack of fenders on my mountain bike meant I got splattered with water, mud, and small bits of gravel. I was covered in water and mud by the time I reached the bottom, including my glasses, face, legs, feet, basically everything.

I rode briefly in creek bottoms, including a couple of creek crossings …

… and snail, wildflower, and geode sightings.

From this point, I basically had a long climb, a bit of flat ridgetop riding, and then another long decent. I was just flying down the hill, and once again got completely covered in muck.

By the time I finished, I was drenched, covered in mud and small rocks, and quite content.

On Saturday, I went mountain biking with Dave. We rode the North Tower and Aynes loops. A short ride, but it was my first trail ride since my foot surgery, and I had a big ride planned for the next day. We ran into some friends of Dave’s out there, and ended up riding part of the ride with them.

Here is part of our ride, this includes part of the long descent on the Aynes loop. I tried to include some fast flowing parts and some of the slower, trickier stuff as well.

My helmet cam struggled with the level of detail a little bit, but overall it looks pretty good. I really like the wide angle lens, as it portrays well how the trail skirts the edges of some ravines.

I took some more footage of the North Tower Loop, but I haven’t had a chance to edit it yet.

In February of 2007, I started to log my cycling miles, using mycyclinglog.com. I’m not obsessive about setting mileage-related goals, but I am obsessive about documenting what I’ve done. I like numbers.

I especially like this particular number: as of this evening, I have ridden 10,011.07 miles since I started keeping track.

That number is still baffling me. 10,000 miles on a bike? Wow!

Let’s see how that breaks down:

Road: 6971.86 or 69.7%

Mixed-terrain: 1814.40 or 18.1%

Commuting: 1977.97 or 19.8%

Mountain Biking: 977.96 or 9.8%

Yes, that adds up to more than 100%. “Mixed-terrain” miles are often also tagged as road or mountain bike miles, depending on the kind of riding. The 10,011.07 total is still correct.

On a side note, we are having a very beautiful spring. I love spring in Bloomington … the town earns its name. Here are a few recent shots. First up, the weeping cherry in our front yard is a gorgeous!

And here are some photos from some commutes and a road ride.

I have some other activities to blog about, but I’ve been having a hard time finding time to write about them. Soon …